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Issues
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User Interface Design Principles
for Interaction Design
Adream Blair-Early and Mike Zender
2 Douglas K. van Duyne, James A. Landay, approaches are, the examination of an existing pattern such as the
and Jason I Hong, The Design of Sites site map, and a detailed recipe for the execution of that pattern, is
(Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2003). not designed to stimulate innovation.
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Two examples of desirable end-user experiences are the often
cited "easy-to-use" and "intuitive." These recommendations have
two problems: they are too vague to be useful and, as final experi
ences, they provide no indication of how they may be achieved. Jef
Raskin, in his 1994 article noting the vagueness of "intuitive inter
face" as a measure of user experience,3 maintains that the common
usage of intuitive interface really means "familiar"; that is, an inter
face that resembles or is identical to something else. However, if
familiarity is the criteria for success, then creativity and novelty
certainly will suffer. In a field in which improvement is needed, a
focus on familiarity will simply reinforce an unacceptable status
quo. In his article, Raskin notes the tension between improvement
and familiarity, suggesting that if intuitive is defined as familiar
then "'Intuitive' may well turn out to be one of the worst quali
ties it (a new interface paradigm) can have."4 Because Raskin wrote
in 1994, it may be tempting to think that such advice is pass?, but
this is not true. Catherine Courage and Kathy Baxter's recent book
Understanding Your User,5 published in 2005, is intended to be a prac
tical guide to user requirements. It defines useable products as "easy
to learn."6 Even if "easy to use/learn" or "intuitive" were defined
precisely, it still would describe an outcome without offering the
means to achieve it.
Rhetoric: A Conceptual Background with Information and Visual Explanations.8 The principles we propose here
Readings, W. Ross Winterowd, ed. (New must be integrated with the parameters that define an interface. We
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.,
propose that parameters and principles working together can drive
1975), 1-37.
innovation and empower designers or any creative person charged
8 Edward Tufte, Visual Display of
with developing an interface. If the principles are founded appropri
Quantitative Information (Cheshire,
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Identifying Parameters and Principles through Design Research
Broadly speaking, design research investigates process, user, cultural
context, form, and subject matter/content.9 Design research as an
applied research activity focuses on users and content. The design
research process used for this project focused on content through
the innovative use of content analysis techniques from exegesis: the
science of interpretation. Our aim was to analyze interactive content
in a thorough way. The premise was that a thorough understanding
of the form given to content would lead student investigators to
fresh insight into both interface as a form and the audience to which
the interface was addressed. From this high level of understanding
of interface and audience, investigators sought to define parameters
and to describe principles to guide interface design. Our research
focused on interaction with content in computational environments.
By analyzing one specific type of interface interaction (content), what
Kenneth Burke calls an "individuation" in his article "The Nature
of Form"10. We derived concepts that are abstractions of many indi
vidual instances. As Burke argues in his article, the form given to
content is revealing of both the author's thinking and the presumed
audiences' experience. In Burke's words, "Form ... gratifies the needs
which it creates." Form is an essential aspect of design.
Interface as a formal tool also is significant in the field of
Human Computer Interaction (HCI). In the past, HCI often has
focused on interfaces primarily as tools that manage a computer
or computer software. However, computer interfaces are no longer
experienced only as tools for using computers, but as frameworks for
exploring content. Many of the examples in Courage's and Baxter's
book on user requirements, a basic HCI issue, are about content
oriented Web sites. Interface as a means to explore content is not just
for the Web. One recent product example, the iPod?, is a small, porta
ble computer with an inventive interface. However, the focal point of
the iPod is neither the device nor the interface, but the content: music
and video (in some models) are the stars. This anecdotal example
suggests that product development generally, and HCI interface
development in particular, are increasingly involved with develop
ing interfaces for content. Because interaction with content typically
is an individual expression of interaction, and because HCI increas
9 Design Council (www.designcouncil.org.
ingly deals with crafting content-oriented experiences, the principles
uk).
derived from our study could apply to broader HCI issues.
10 Kenneth Burke, "The Nature of Form" in
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Design Issues: Volume 24, Number 3 Summer 2008
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The Process of Developing Interface Parameters
Overview
Our research method was inductive. After initially defining what
an interface is, student researchers studied the principles of content
interpretation, then selected successful content interfaces, and
applied the interpretive principles to the study these interfaces. From
looking at the structure of many content interfaces, students derived
principles that made these interfaces successful. The derived prin
ciples then were consolidated and compared to previously published
interface guidelines. The process was heuristic, and the goal was to
discover design principles that were theoretically based, definitive
enough to guide design, and yet timeless enough to guide interface
development as technologies and techniques change. We recognize
the dangers of starting with individual instances and from indi
vidual instances deriving useful general principles. One alternative
approach already noted is to identify successful instances and codify
these as patterns to follow, such as was done in Duyne, Landay,
and Hong's book The Design of Sites. The difficulty of the pattern
approach is the limit it places on innovation. Despite the authors'
claim that "Our patterns direct your energies to solving new prob
lems as opposed to reinventing the wheel," the purpose of a pattern
is to provide something to follow, not the invention of something
novel. Our purpose was different: describing principles that could
spur innovation.
Interface Definition
We began by asking what the essential qualities?the parameters?of
an effective interface are. Like many questions, we found the answer
depended on context. Cooper and Reimann in their book About Face
2.0, state, "... there is no such thing as an objectively good dialogue
box?the quality depends on the situation: who the user is and what
his background and goals are."11 In the 1992 version of "Macintosh
Human Interface Guidelines" by Apple Computer, widely recog
nized as pioneering in user interface development, there are thirty
eight index entries for icons, but none for interface.12 This suggested
that interface and icon were nearly synonymous and that, logically,
the best interfaces would be those with the best icons; and that those
without icons would fail. This is clearly not the case, but suggests the
extent to which interfaces had become mired in an existing pattern
based on icons and a paradigm of interfaces as tools to manage soft
11 Alan Cooper and Robert Reimann, About ware. We began to agree with Cooper and Reimann that what made
Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction particular patterns such as icons and dialogue boxes meaningful was
Design (Indianapolis IN: Wiley, 2003). something more basic than the patterns themselves.
12 Apple Computer, Inc., Macintosh Human
A more general definition of interface was "the interaction
Interface Guidelines (Boston: Addison
between two systems" (American Heritage Dictionary). A more recent
Wesley, 1992).
13 Wikipedia, "User Interface"
interface definition from Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia,13
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_ seemed closer to the point in defining user interface as: "The inter
Interface). (Acessed: 08/25/2007). face is the functional and sensorial attributes of a system (appliance,
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Software, vehicle, etc.) that are relevant to its operation by users."
However, this definition emphasizes attributes over interaction,
suggesting that interface is a thing and not a process. A bit closer to
Content Research
how the nature of different content types might impact the design
of an interface to that content. The particular inductive method we
employed was based on "exegesis," an inductive method used for
understanding texts. "Exegesis," a Greek loan word, literally means
to lead or draw out (ex?out, hegeisthai?lead or think). Exegesis
has been translated as "expound" or "explain," and today has come
to mean the principles and methods used to draw the meaning out
of texts; primarily religious texts such as the Bible. We drew upon a
text-based research approach because we had limited the scope of
our work to interaction with content rather than interaction more
generally.
Respect for context and content type are the key principles
of exegesis. Following these principles, students selected, analyzed,
and compared the linguistic features of three different content types,
ranging on a continuum from poetic to scientific proposed by noted
author C. S. Lewis. The specific content types: poem, newspaper
editorial (from an edition of the New York Times) and scientific report
(from the New England Journal of Medicine), were intended to be repre
sentative of the full spectrum of content types.
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Syntactical diagrams were created for each content type as
a technique to analyze the structure and meaning of the content.14
Word frequency, part of speech, and meaning were analyzed and
compared. A typical finding was that scientific articles contain words
with a high volume of very precise, often specialized meanings. On
the other hand, poems use common words, often with atypical or
unexpected metaphorical meaning: the words are not always used
literally. Syntactical structures of each content type were similarly
analyzed and compared. A typical finding was that poems do not
speak in complete sentences, that editorials build arguments; and
that scientific papers use rigid problem/solution structures with no
personal references. The linguistic features were used to theorize
authorial intention in writing the content and, by implication, the
intended audience. Teams reasoned that the authors of scientific
articles strive for precision in order to accommodate a small but
specialized audience, while poets strive to create a general impres
sion with a broad audience. Determining authorial intent through
linguistic analysis is unusual in design research, but is integral to
hermeneutics and exegesis; and the processes and techniques for it
are well established.15
The result of this research was to define a continuum of
"content types" bounded by two extremes:
Poetic
Poetic information, in contrast, asks to be experienced. At
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author. Four broad content delivery strategies were loosely defined: a
"reference strategy" serving discrete bits of information to a specific
Educational?The Instructor
A content strategy designed to instruct, often in a step
by-step fashion. Unsurprisingly, educational delivery of
content takes on the persona of a teacher. An educational
or teaching delivery still maintains a high degree of believ
ability and trust, but is more likely to be sequential and
increase user knowledge through a series of learning or
building steps than the cross-referencing librarian persona.
The teacher, like the librarian, is driven to educate its audi
Inspiration?The Speaker
A content strategy designed to motivate or inspire.
Inspirational delivery takes on the persona of a motiva
tional speaker. Often, the inspirational source has a more
personal connection to the audience through calls to action
and directives. The inspirational source derives its trust
through emotional response and personal connection rather
than through factual data.
Entertainment?The Actor
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most open to interpretation, and may even require audience
participation in establishing the content. In this scenario,
the user is given a more authorial role than in the reference
and educational strategies.
The Hunter
The hunter is focused, precise and often destination-driven.
The hunter values the speed and efficiency of an interface,
and rarely deviates from its initial content direction to
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The Browser
The browser is intent on the journey and, in many cases,
may not have a final content destination in mind. The
browser is less focused and driven in the search for content,
Style Guide: Basic Principles for Creating tures. We determined that, based on inherent and strategic content
Web Sites (New Haven, CT: Yale considerations, efficient and appropriate interfaces can be created
University Press, 1999). along four structural themes: linear, hierarchical, matrix, and web.
Figure 1
MOTIVATION provide accurate data inform and educate inspire and emotional con- inspire and stimulate the
quickly, inform. nect. to stimulate audience, diversion.
CONTENT established content established content less content structure, more vague, open to interpretation
STRUCTURE structure, cross-referencing structure, accessible to large open to interpretation
and linking, most likely to be audience
hierarchy
SCALE links to much larger body of may be part of a larger more often, a single site that self contained and most
similar data community of data, can also may contain links to similar likely to be linear in
be singular. information structure.
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D. Content Structures
Linear
A linear interface is one that is fixed sequentially. Scientific
content, having a fixed and sequential structure, is deliv
ered step-by-step, with one additional piece of information
following each successive selection. Instructions given
following a teaching strategy would be well suited to a
linear structure.
Figures 2 and 3
ooo
Student example, Phillip Harvey.
ooo
segments through the use of a segmented
scrollbar.
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Hierarchy or Tree Structure
The tree diagram or hierarchy is an interface that expands
topically. In a hierarchy, several options may follow each
selection. A hierarchy is suitable for content with a parent/
child structure, and often is associated with a reference
strategy.
Figure 4
95
Design Issues: Volume 24, Number 3 Summer 2008
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wmm?xmm?m?m^kM
IgJllI
|i|?|Ss;l^
Figure 5
Matrix
Student example, Ryan Devenish. A matrix interface is one that simultaneously presents
Student exercise exploring the matrix
multiple relational options, usually organized by categories.
structure. Content about major cities was
A matrix is well suited to content with multiple related
revealed through its placement on a grid.
categories following a reference strategy.
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? .... ..?? .. .
pi
:. ..p .p. ... -. .: ..Chhm's Post of' Pi how many digt$: :is too
mny?" a.d 'No, I really
want to know how many
digits you have.
Useles-snss of Pi and
Its Irrational Friends
irrational number pi
Figure 6
Web
Student example, Tim King. Search results A web is an interface freely associated cluster of undifferen
were place within a matrix based on how tiated items. It is useful for unstructured content following
scientific or poetic the content was and how
an inspirational or entertainment strategy.
closely it related to the search query.
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Design Issues: Volume 24, Number 3 Summer 2008
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Table 1
User Control
Start
Efficiency
Customization
Proximity Concept & Physical
Help
Content:
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Design Issues: Volume 24, Number 3 Summer 2008
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Interface Design Principles
A. Obvious Start: Design an Obvious Starting Point
A user must know how to start interaction with the content. In
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C. Consistent Logic: Design an Internally Consistent Logic
for Content, Actions, and Effects
Note: the most important consistency is consistency with user expec
tations.
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Users do not come to an interface as a blank slate, but rather
101
Design Issues: Volume 24, Number 3 Summer 2008
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menus. Cluster similar items spatially as well as conceptually. Design
consistency in the spatial location of related objects. A continuum for
this principle might be defined as from close to distant. Proximity is
important because visual working memory has a spatial component
that remembers the positions of up to three to five specific objects.25
Proximity advantages this innate memory.
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General Design Principles
The following principles constitute good communication design
practice and, as such, should be included in interface design practice,
but are not specific to interface design. Every interface, by defini
tion, engages a user with some content. It is logical for the inter
face to reflect the nature of the content in every possible aspect. The
interface type should match the content type and user intention. For
example, step-by-step instructional content is best presented with
some variant of the linear interface.
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Design Issues: Volume 24, Number 3 Summer 2008
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D. Metaphor: Use Metaphors Where Content Is New, Obscure,
or a Narrative-Based Visual Metaphor
Metaphors trigger memories and build associations. Use them where
helpful, particularly when introducing new or obscure concepts.
The following is the essence of Working with Interface
Metaphors by Thomas D. Ericsson:
Metaphor is an effective tool in interface design in that it
engages users more fully, allowing them the ability to use
previous knowledge and experience to better understand
current unknown experiences. A metaphor is an invis
ible web of terms and associations that underlies the way
we speak and think about a concept. Metaphors function
as natural models, allowing us to take our knowledge of
familiar, concrete objects and experiences and use it to give
structure to more abstract concepts."27
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Landmarks:
Proximity:
Adaptation:
Interface Is Content:
Help:
Scientific Poetic
Figure 6
Student example, Tim King. Search results Librarian Teacher SpeaJcer Actor
were place within a matrix based on how
m
Obvious Start:
Color
saturated fTHJtftd
FOff?
x Y Location
><
' jwpict&d - upptr tuV'
2001), 66.
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Design Issues: Volume 24, Number 3 Summer 2008
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Note that the decisions related to "obvious start" align roughly with
the interface parameters above them, causing each design decision
to be taken in reference to the specific interface parameters being
addressed. While this process could be followed with each interface
principle in turn: clear reverse, consistent logic, observe conventions,
and so forth; in practice, consideration of a just a few principles
generally leads to a design theme or system that encompasses the
other principles. The process is not linear, but iterative and global,
consistent with the principle of consistent logic. We believe this
approach has great flexibility while accounting for all the relevant
factors. The principles proposed are actionable, and have the poten
tial to be measurable. While guidance is clearly prescribed and is
based on the parameters of an interface, the means to accomplish
such an interface are left completely open, inviting invention and
innovation. Novel combinations can be envisioned and may even
be encouraged. Recipes for making Web site maps are replaced by
guidance in establishing landmarks and contexts for a particular
user intention and content type. Gone are vague descriptions of end
states; replaced by a creativity-expanding matrix of distinct possibili
ties aimed toward a target experience.
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effectively pre-attentive, the point at which it popped out, was estab
lished. Through this study, it was determined that dark values proj
ect blurriness with less real physical blur than light values. Pushed
further, a ratio of blurriness to background value might be developed
quantifying the degree to which different amounts of blurriness pop
out from their surroundings. These ratios could be applied to the
"Start" and "Exit" principles, tested, and evaluated. Unfortunately,
there are nearly a dozen pre-attentive features. This study barely
explored one, and that one in isolation from the others. More stud
ies such as this are needed to define effectiveness of visual form,
and how it might be used to quantify visual attributes in interface
displays.
Figures 7 and 8
Summary
We believe it is clear that interface parameters and design principles
can be combined in a way that to supports a design practice. We also
believe that an integrated approach combining users, content, and
form is comprehensive enough at a high level to guide the design of
novel and effective interfaces. As a result of this study, it also is clear
that more precisely defined parameters for visual form are needed in
order to apply design principles in measurable ways. Without more
detailed knowledge of the effects of the execution of visual form,
the principles proposed above can only be applied intuitively. We
believe that the next steps are to conduct research in visual form, and
apply it to the proposed principles to define them in more measur
able ways. Through continued research, we would like to convert
intuition into significant knowledge so that designers can grow to
make the kind of contribution to human understanding that we
believe we are capable of making.
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Design Issues: Volume 24, Number 3 Summer 2008
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